‘God listens to all who have faith.’
‘You sure? I’ve seen many a religious man, good and bad, Catholic and Calvinist, pray for mercy and be cut down by the sword, no different from any imp or scoundrel. Then nothingness. No cries, no lights, no ghost, just the stillness of death. But you haven’t seen it yet, have you?’
Jacob had stopped hating this man who had brought calamity upon his family. So he obliged with a question. He said, ‘You are angry with God, are you not, Lieutenant Ducamp?’
‘Angry? Not angry. How can a man be angry at nothing? Because if there were something, then why did he let my wife and son be killed while I was away defending his religion?’
Ducamp’s eyes watered slightly, surely from pipe smoke. It could not be from emotion, could it? Again Jacob helped the bosun empty his bile of bitterness. He said, ‘How did they die?’
‘Swept away by disease. When I went home, the place was bare and lifeless. No older than your lad, my boy was. A bright lad, and now just gone. Nothing left to prove they even lived.’
‘The rendezvous is in heaven, Monsieur Ducamp. It is the only hope.’
‘Heaven? Even if there was a heaven, how would I get in? I have sinned. I have killed, and I prepare to do so again.’
‘The choice is yours, but you must make it now. For when the musket shot flies to your head, it will be too late. Remember, if you repent, you may regain God’s love through Jesus Christ, He is our Saviour.’
‘And why not through Mohamed or Yahweh?’ said Ducamp, who had lost some of the bitterness in his voice now that he had got his story off his chest—now that he had made it clear to Jacob that he too had suffered the grief of loss.
‘I will pray for you,’ said Jacob. By offering to pray for the man, Jacob realised he was forgiving him. And he felt relieved of his own ball of bitterness.
The bosun gazed through the gun port towards the approaching shore of Cuba. He considered for a moment that it was inhabited by people he was conditioned to kill.
After drawing on his pipe, he said, ‘Don’t make sense.’ Then he climbed the sun-filled hatchway to prepare for manoeuvres.
*
Laurent de Graaf knew the southeast coast of Cuba well. The previous year, he had defeated Biscayan privateers off Jucaro who had been commissioned by the king of Spain to track him down. But the coast was still frequently patrolled by the guardacostas. So under the Dutchman’s lead, the three ships slipped into the cove of a cay located a few leagues from the mouth of the Cauto River.
The warm smell of the land, of trees and fresh flowers and vegetation, was once again in Jacob’s nose as evening encroached. He had joined two hundred men or more ashore, sitting, squatting, or standing around a cluster of rocks where the three captains made their case.
De Graaf proposed to draw any patrolling Spanish ships away from the Cauto estuary so that the other parties could slip into the river mouth aboard longboats and canoes. From there, they could follow the river upstream toward the township of Bayamo, one of the richest commercial and agricultural settlements on Cuba.
Once de Graaf had dispatched any guardacostas ships, he would lead his forces along the Manzanillo land route, shorter and more direct than the winding river. The idea was to attack the township from both sides, north and south.
It would be a daring inland campaign for sure, one that had never been attempted, which was all the more reason to suspect the place would be full of complacent merchants and planters with coffers full to the brim. And according to Joe, the little mulatto, the township, having never been harassed, lay pretty much open to attack.
‘I got a question,’ boomed a great bull of a man who had got to his feet at the front. ‘What if they get news in Santiago? You can bet your breeches a full fleet will come chasing quicker than you can say rumbullion!’
‘Winds are against a ship reaching Santiago,’ said de Graaf. ‘It would take a week for a runner to get there by land. Then a fleet would take three days at best to round the cape. That gives us ten days to take the town and carry the plunder back to the cays!’
Captain Brook stepped forward, and with his usual gruff charisma, he roared: ‘What you say there, lads? Are we here for plunder?’
The little cove was filled with a resounding aye and a thunderous cheer that shook flocks of colourful birds from their perches.
The buccaneers immediately set about making ready all the boats at their disposal—including those from de Graaf’s frigate—which would carry them to pots of gold, or to their death.
*
De Graaf boldly sailed his frigate away from the setting sun into Spanish waters. Captain Brook waited. The first stars appeared, and an hour after that, there still had been no shot fired, which could only indicate that de Graaf had not encountered any Spanish ships.
Brook’s boat led the way over the starlit water of the placid coastal shoals. Thirty men had been left behind to defend and manoeuvre the ships if need be. Jacob at first assumed he would be among them, but Brook told him his services would be needed in the field. Barely an hour later, the eight-boat flotilla reached the mouth of the Cauto River.
The estuary, which once thrived with contraband activity, was still. The massive flood of 1616 had altered the river’s course. It no longer offered an easy link to the embarcadero where, back in the day, merchandise to and from Bayamo used to be loaded and unloaded. These days, merchants preferred the route by land, which had the advantage of running straight to the township.
Brook, with the help of de Graaf’s mulatto, led the way through the dark, winding waters of the Cauto River. Captain Cox, Quartermaster Blunt, and five other senior crewmates followed in silence, each commanding a boat containing up to twenty-five men who took turns to row against the gentle current. Jacob sat in the one Ducamp was given to command.
They paddled along in Indian file in the white light of the rising moon, which was three-quarters full. They kept to the middle of the river, well away from the banks where the odd splash announced the presence of crocodiles. On a few occasions, they had to carry their embarkations over the marshy ground to the next navigable portion, and took shortcuts across strips of land whenever the river snaked round on itself.
A new day was dawning by the time they reached the old embarcadero. Only twenty miles now separated them from the township of Bayamo.
The boats were swiftly and quietly lifted out of the water and placed upside down in the long grass along the riverbank. Standing on the embarcadero, Captain Brook surveyed the surrounding vegetation and the rough dirt track ahead with satisfaction. Then he swung his arm around the little mulatto’s neck in a gesture of companionship.
‘Well done, Joe!’ he said with a paternalistic glow, and puckered a kiss on the mulatto’s forehead.
Jacob could not help but notice the new twinkle in the captain’s eyes that, since their first night out of Pinos Island, seemed to search for the mulatto whenever he was out of sight. It was the same look many a mate shared with his chosen partner. It might be difficult to admit, but Jacob knew it was the look of trust, and love. The mulatto looked up at his protector with gratitude.
But as they proceeded into the track surrounded by woodland, the captain soon recovered his sardonic snarl. After fifteen minutes of marching, he stopped.
‘Hold it, lads!’ he growled, holding up a hand to halt the movement of the group. Fifty yards ahead, the road was strewn with felled trees. Fresh sap still hung heavy in the early morning air. It was a barricade. Somehow the Spaniards had gotten wind of the buccaneers’ approach.
Something moved in the tangle of logs and branches. A head, then a barrel of a musket became visible. The first shot went off, closely followed by a cracking volley. It was a warning shot. Brook, a cunning and quick-thinking fellow, wanting the Spaniards to think he and his men had taken heed, signalled to everyone to turn tail.
The Spaniards must have worked all night, thought Jacob, as he ran with the group back to the embarcadero.
�
��We can take ’em easy,’ said Captain Cox, once Brook had assembled with the other chiefs on the bank of the river.
‘Nah, man. They’ll have set up ambushes all along the route,’ said Brook. ‘We’ll be well knackered by the time we get through to the township.’ He put a hand on the mulatto’s shoulder. ‘Joe’ll show us the way through the woods, won’t you, Joe?’
‘Yes, Captain Brook, Sir, I show you what you want!’
‘Good lad!’
Cox made no attempt to debate his case; he had seen Brook this way before.
Brook’s plan was swiftly put to a vote, and then put into action. The advancing men took turns to beat through the vegetation so as not to dull their blades.
Their relentless march through woodland and thick undergrowth at last brought them to the edge of a thicket north of the township, which was not open, as was initially thought. It was protected by a stockade. Between the wall of timber posts and the thicket lay a field that had recently been laboured.
To Jacob’s disappointment, all these unexpected barriers did nothing to deter the fervour of the buccaneers who, on the contrary, now made no secret of their presence. They beat the flat of their swords with relish and howled like baboons, sounds which would instil the fear of the devil into any man or beast.
*
The mayor of Bayamo was Guiseppi de la Firma, well born, and like all Spanish nobility, proud of his heritage. So proud, in fact, that he added five extra syllables to his already many-syllabled name, making it Senor Guiseppi Alonzo de la Firma del Barro Bravo. Guiseppi was also an important landowner whose fields of cocoa and tobacco stretched far and wide along the south-facing slopes of the township. Needless to say, being such a proud man, he was very clever too.
It was his idea to impede the onslaught of the assailants by setting up ambushes. A devout Catholic, Guiseppi also had the luck of the devil, and it so happened that a company of cavalry was at present stationed in his town. They had been patrolling across the hills from Santiago to Bayamo as an exercise to train up cadets.
Guiseppi now peered through the stockade at the disorderly rabble of rovers lined up on the edge of the thicket. Their slaughter would be his proudest achievement and might possibly earn him a place in Spanish history.
*
Jacob was standing with Ducamp. Captain Brook was just a few yards away.
‘Most likely take ’em tomorrow,’ said the captain, ‘soon as de Graaf shows up.’
It had been agreed with the Dutchman that they should wait until he sent word of his arrival on the opposite side of the township. They probably wouldn’t even have to raise their hangers, de Graaf had said in jest, thinking of the surprise on the faces of the townsfolk when they found themselves surrounded.
But the chief of the Catholics had other plans. At his disposal, he had a company of young, brave cavaliers, a captain ready to do battle, and he surmised that the insolent bucks in the near distance must have already suffered ambush after ambush till they had been pushed into the woods. Their attempt at intimidation, a ruse to hide their fatigue, did not fool him.
So, urged on by the company captain, who was impatient to put his training to good use, and despite no news from the barricades, the mayor ordered his surprise force of cavaliers to assemble in front of the stockade. And he sent word to the soldiers stationed at the ambush sites to cut the rovers down as they retreated. Not one of the rovers should get away; all must be stopped, dead or alive.
*
The buccaneers’ cacophony was silenced as the horsemen took their positions for the two-hundred-yard charge across the laboured field. Captain Brook’s eyes widened with surprise, then narrowed with a sort of glee.
‘What have we here, lads?’ he roared. ‘Looks like playtime’s come sooner than later!’ The men hallooed and bat their swords, once again making a terrifying din.
The horsemen, three lines deep, began steering their steeds towards the horde. But the horde was already spreading out into a treacherous crescent.
‘Make ’em count, lads!’ hurled Brook as the buccaneers drew their muskets.
The rovers did not run to meet them on the battlefield; they were not prepared to meet swords travelling at forty miles an hour. Buccaneers did not fight fair like proper soldiers: they fought to win. So instead they took aim with their muskets, and they began picking off their prey with an almost nonchalant precision. By the time the cavalry had reached the middle of the field, a third of them had fallen, whereas not a buccaneer was wounded.
Jacob was at first mesmerized. From the edge of the wood, he contemplated the scene with a strange fascination as tens of determined young men were struck down on the squeeze of a trigger. He watched the buccaneer next to him take aim with one eye half-closed, and fire his musket. Jacob followed the trajectory of the shot, as if time were slowed down, and a few moments later saw it sink into the head of a young Spaniard who then tumbled backward off his mount.
The acrid smell of gun smoke and the rumble of fast- approaching hooves jolted his senses and made him remember his station. But precisely where was it that he was supposed to stand?
He scanned left to right, where scores of buccaneers were popping away with their guns. As the sun was becoming stronger, his reflex was to back into the wood, where he put down his leather bag at the foot of a tree.
The shooting suddenly ceased. The thunder of hooves and the snorting of beasts grew louder. Then Jacob heard the roar of Brook. ‘Step back, lads! Back to cover!’
A cavalier barely twenty yards away blasted out in Spanish, ‘Lascars! Stand and fight like men!’ It was the Spanish captain. He must certainly have felt cheated, for the lascars were not playing by the rules at all. Instead they backed into the thicket while bringing out their cutlasses in order to parry the onslaught.
The caballeros nevertheless continued their course over the undergrowth and straight into the wood, swiping at everything that moved as they went. But the trees, though sparse in places, made their horses swerve and reduce their gait.
The rovers were not slow to seize their chance. They rushed the confused steeds as they turned, pulling down their riders to the ground where a heavy razor-sharp blade awaited them.
The battle quickly evolved into a mass melee. Jacob found himself standing alone amid the raging fracas and hellish commotion made by steel and the many contrasted roars of men killing each other. He stood by his bag like an uninvited guest at a ball. It seemed like everyone in the wood had gone into a frenzied dance, and he was the only sane soul among them. There were practically two rovers to every caballero, which meant that Jacob lacked a partner to dance with. Not for long, though.
A young cavalier on foot, tall, lanky, and smooth-skinned, appeared before him. This was the kill-or-be-killed moment Brook and Ducamp had spoken of.
Delpech drew his sword just in time to parry a blow. The muchacho was visibly inexperienced, clumsy, and probably terrified. Maybe this was his first melee outing. Maybe he lacked the killer instinct that came naturally to some folk. Maybe he had not made that kill-or-be-killed decision either. He struck with wild, sweeping blows, leaving himself open to a poke in the ribcage. But instead of a lunge forward, Jacob backed off, parrying again and again, until his back came up against a tree.
Unable to move backward as the caballero continued his attack, Jacob could only dodge and stick out his sword. Delpech felt his blade run through flesh and muscle till it butted against bone. The young man dropped his sword in mid-swing. ‘Madre!’ he cried in one short, horror-filled breath. He then deflated like a pig’s bladder, and fell to the floor as blood leaked out profusely from the perforation in his side. Jacob looked down aghast at the fallen lad lying on the thicket bed. He felt sick. He let fall his dripping sword from his hand.
‘Pick it up, man!’ yelled a voice from a few yards away. It came from Ducamp, who was deflecting a blow from his adversary.
But Jacob could not.
A mounted Spaniard charged out of the sun into
the dusty thicket. He reared his horse and pointed his pistol at the bastard at the tree with the muchacho lying at his feet.
Delpech, paralysed, gritted his teeth in terror and shame. Then there came an almighty explosion from behind his left ear, and the next instant, the Spaniard’s head jolted back with the force of a cluster of shot that peppered his face.
‘Pull yourself together, man,’ shouted Ducamp, now standing next to him with a smoking double-barrelled pistol, which he holstered.
Jacob suddenly drew his own pistol and without a thought fired. Ducamp turned round to see the Spaniard who would have lopped off the lieutenant’s head, had Jacob not sent a shot into his chest first. Ducamp finished him off and continued the fight.
‘Go with Joe!’ commanded Captain Brook to Jacob, ten yards further along and visibly relishing every kill. Nothing seemed able to resist him as he wielded sword and pistols with equal delight and dexterity.
The mulatto who had appeared at Jacob’s side led the doctor deeper into the woods, away from the killing zone, away from the chaos of bloodletting and the flashes of steel and powder.
The fight was short-lived, and in less than an hour, the Spanish, seeing their numbers drastically dwindle, retreated across the field running and limping, some bowed over on horseback. But the distance gave the buccaneers enough time to load their muskets and take aim. This was not fair either, the Spanish captain would have thought had he lived. Jacob too was sickened as through the trees he watched the escapees fall. Only a handful of Spaniards made it back through the stockade alive.
Jacob looked around, appalled at the carnage in which he had partaken. His gaze paused at the tree where his first victim had fallen. He then rushed toward him, armed this time with nothing but his leather bag, for he saw the caballero move. Jacob knelt down beside him in a pool of sunshine. The young Spaniard was breathing, and he was conscious. Jacob loosened his blood-drenched tunic so he could breathe more easily.
‘No quiero morir,’ said the soldier, grasping Jacob by the sleeve, as if by doing so, he would keep a hold on life. There was nothing Delpech could do except try to cover the wound. The rest was in the hands of the Lord.
Voyage of Malice Page 20